Mitt Romney

Willard Mitt Romney (12 March 1947-) was Governor of Massachusetts (R) from 2 January 2003 to 4 January 2007 (succeeding Jane Swift and preceding Deval Patrick). In 2012, he was the Republican presidential nominee, losing to Democratic Party incumbent Barack Obama.

Biography
Willard Mitt Romney was born in Detroit, Michigan on 12 March 1947, the son of George W. Romney and Lenore Romney. He was raised in Bloomfield Hills, and he became a Mormon missionary in France in 1966, serving for two-and-a-half years. By 1971, he had participated in the political campaigns of both parents, and he earned a BA from Brigham Young University that same year before earning a joint JD-MBA from Harvard University in 1975. He became a management consultant and secured a position at Bain & Company in 1977, later serving as its CEO. He helped lead the company out of a financial crisis, and he founded the private equity investment firm Bain Capital, which became one of the largest in the nation. In 1994, he stepped down from his Bain Capital and Mormon leadership roles to run for the US Senate from Massachusetts, running as a member of the Republican Party, but he lost to Democratic Party candidate Ted Kennedy. However, his successful stint as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics led to a relaunch of his political career.

In 2002, he was elected Governor of Massachusetts, and he signed health care reform legislation into law, providing near-universal health insurance access through state-level subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance. Through spending cuts, increased fees, and closing corporate tax loopholes, Romney eliminated a $1,500,000,000 deficit, but he chose not to run for re-election in 2006, preferring to focus on running for president in 2008. He failed to win the Republican nomination, with John McCain beating him. However, he won the nomination in 2012, and he lost the electoral college by 332-206, with the popular vote being 51%-47% in Democratic incumbent Barack Obama's favor.